Leo's mother had sung about this day for as long as he could remember, but he never thought this day would come; at least not this soon. The day he would step beyond the towering fence that made his home feel more like a prison.
But the day came like a thief in the night.
Leo now stood at the gate, about to leave the Gaps. About to leave the only world he knew, and more painfully the family he loved.
His mother stood across from him, her unnaturally bright blue eyes dipping beneath the weight of sadness. His two older sisters and his younger brother huddled behind her, their faces just like their mother's, heavy and pale.
She stepped forward. "Remember. Never let them know who you are."
Despite the loud wind gnawing at his skin, Leo could hear the tremor in her voice.
"Never let them know you're the son of the mad god." Her grip on his hand tightened like she was trying to engrave the warning into his bones.
Leo had heard stories about his father from his mother. A man who had great power and earned the title of god. Who shattered the perfect world the gods had created, fracturing them into domains. How he had retreated into the gaps, forcing Leo and his family to live in a place where the sun dared not rise, where the air constantly warred with itself.
His mother's voice broke through his thoughts. "I wish I knew how to use the pathways like your father, I could have taught you how to use your powers. Then maybe…I wouldn't have to send you into a world that wouldn't be kind to you." She cupped his cheeks, her voice steeling. "Now, you must train harder. Hone your skills. The only way we can leave this place… is to kill your father when he returns and redeems us."
Killing his father shouldn't be hard. Leo had never met the man. He had vanished the moment Leo was born. No grand farewell. Nothing. To him he was a stranger.
For some reason, he could never stomach the thought.
Leo didn't know if he wanted to kill the man, but if that would free his family from this dead place, so be it.
Leo nodded. With the gravity of his mother's words pressed down on his chest, he hugged his siblings one by one, holding them close, memorizing their warmth as if it would be the last time. It might be.
As the large black gates began to close, He stepped back, his last glimpse was his younger brother burying his tear stricken face into his mother's gown.
When the gates closed with a heavy echoing thud, Leo turned and took his first step into the darkness.
The world beyond the gate was nothing like he had imagined. The gap was a dark void, an endless abyss of nothingness resting between domains.
For hours, Leo walked through the gaps, following the threads of green lights that flickered ahead of him, weaving through the darkness a path.
He could've stopped to eat the little snack his sister had slipped into his pocket. Could've rested to soothe the aching soles of his feet.
But, not when the green threads were fleeting. They could vanish anytime, leaving him lost in black space where time didn't exist. His existence was on the line here.
So he pushed forward, ignoring all his body's warnings, ignoring the absence of life and the gnawing silence that swallowed the thuds of his feet.
Eventually, Leo found himself standing before the fabric of the gap; A veil pulsing with energy, cracked and flickering like lightning trapped in a glass. It seemed alive, as it pulsed like the heart of a beast.
Hands trembling, he reached for the necklace around his neck—a hexagon-shaped obsidian stone connected to a small silver chain.
As Leo brought it closer to the veil, the necklace glowed. Lines like lightning sparked across, mirroring the energy of the veil.
Immediately he placed the necklace where the cracks converged, the fabric tore open, stretching like a beast maw. Wide and hungry.
Leo barely had time to brace himself before he was pulled into the mouth of the veil. He felt his body disintegrate into pieces and remade in an instant.
And when the sensation stopped, he was standing in another world.
A world where the sun didn't fear to rise.
Leo had always imagined what the sun felt like. He had read about its warmth. But nothing prepared him for its sting
'Shit!'
The harsh sunlight pierced into his iris, and he flinched, squeezing his eyes shut.
And when he opened them again, buildings towered over him, far taller than the walls he had left behind.
The street buzzed, full of people, some of them bumping into him. He felt like a grain of sand on a beach. Tiny and invisible Like he could get lost in the sea of people.
The beast moved on wheels here, running at neckbreak speed. Their engines roared like furious at the road itself. A jarring contrast to the silence he was used to.
Cars, he remembered. That's what they were called. He'd seen the word once or twice in the newspaper his mother had returned with.
'Shit, I should've read those papers' Leo thought
Now here he was, standing like an idiot, not even bold enough to smack his forehead at his lack of preparation:
While he avoided the newspapers like a plague, he drowned himself in novels, reading about characters. How characters stepped into a different world and felt awe. Some sort of excitement.
But this? This wasn't exciting. This was suffocating.
But at least the wind here was calm. Peaceful. One might think it didn't exist, he felt.
Leo was trying to adjust to the sensory overload, when ear splitting scream cut through the noise of the city.
"Breachers!"
Leo barely heard the word, but as soon as people began running, scattering in different directions, he followed.
His feet slammed against the granite road as he ran past buildings and people to which only the gods knew where. His body bumped into others, the crowd surging and crashing around him. People screamed. They tipped. They fell.
He turned into a narrow alley, his lungs blazing. It was dark and quiet, a familiar atmosphere. One that reminded him of home.
But as he bent over, gasping for air, the thud of footsteps echoed through the alley. Too measured. Too deliberate. Not one but four figures creeped out from the shadows, towering over him, their gazes aggressive and cold
One of them stepped forward."Are you lost, boy?" His voice matched his face, gruff and unforgiving.
Leo's insides tightened.
The man's gaze flickered to the necklace hanging on Leo's neck. "You don't look like you're from here," the man said, his tone thick with suspicion
"Maybe he's from Domain five." Another shrugged.
Leo's heart thrashed within the chest as he prayed to whichever of the six gods might be willing to listen to a godless vessel like him, hoping this wasn't Domain Six, where his mother told him outsiders were hunted and sold.
"Those people are too poor to own stuff like this." The first man stared at Leo, with a cunny smile. "You're practically begging to be robbed, walking around like this." A dark chuckle bubbled out of his throat.
The other men joined in, their laughs filling the alley.
His eyes blew wide. 'Robbed? I was getting robbed. But I just arrived.'
Before Leo could respond, the man reached into his pocket, and pulled at a gun, aiming at Leo.
These men were dangerous; he could feel it.
'This should be easy.'
After all, they were using guns instead of magic. They were most likely like his mother and siblings, unable to connect to gods through pathways that granted magic.
Leo drew a silent breath, trying hard to stop panic from coiling in his chest.
'It should be simple; move in quickly and shove the gun upward to cause a misfire, then knock the weapon out of his hand.' He thought as he remembered what characters had done countless times in novels.
Leo moved.
The man fired
The shot sliced through the air. A sharp pain slammed into Leo's chest, and his hands flew to the spot, blood already warm beneath his fingers.
'Guess the novels don't teach you how fast bullets actually are.'
A strangled groan escaped his throat as he staggered, and then collapsed to the ground.
His visions blurred. The sound became distant. Everything began to slip away like the end of a chapter.
He had thought passing the Gaps would be the hardest. And this was the easy part. Get to a domain, blend in, and find a place to train. That was the plan. Not getting shot within an hour.
One thought pulsed through his mind.
'So my mother and siblings will be stuck there forever?'
More painful—They wouldn't even know he was dead.
And Leo fell into an unfamiliar darkness.